The Washington Post
A soldier left for dead after being shot in the head. A widow whose two sons won’t have their father to take them fishing or teach them how to be gentlemen. A grieving father who includes himself and his unborn grandson in the death toll of the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood.
Survivors of the attack and relatives of those killed testified Monday during the final phase of Maj. Nidal Hasan’s trial. Prosecutors hope the emotional testimony — from sobbing widows, distraught parents and paralyzed soldiers — helps convince jurors to impose a rare military death sentence on Hasan, who was convicted last week of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others at the Texas military base.
The sentencing phase also will be Hasan’s last chance to tell jurors what he’s spent the last four years telling the military, judges and journalists: that the killing of unarmed American soldiers preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan was necessary to protect Muslim insurgents. But whether he plans to address jurors remains unclear.
Staff Sgt. Patrick Ziegler was among the first to testify, telling jurors how he was shot four times and underwent emergency surgery that removed about 20 percent of his brain. Doctors initially expected him to die or remain in a vegetative state.
Ziegler was hospitalized for about 11 months and had 10 surgeries. He is now paralyzed on his left side, unable to use his left hand, and blind spots in both eyes prevent him from driving.
“I think I’m hopeful I’ll continue to recover some movement, but eventually I’ll succumb to my wounds and I won’t be able to function,” Ziegler said.
The married father said he has trouble caring for his 10-month-old son, “like a normal father would,” and described his cognitive level as that of a 10th or 11th grader. He also said he has fought severe depression.
“I’m a lot angrier and lot darker than I used to be,” he said, adding that the injuries had “pretty much affected every facet of my personality.”
Shoua Her wiped away tears as she recalled how she and her husband, Pfc. Kham Xiong, talked about growing old together and having more children. Now, she said, their children know their slain father only through memories and stories.
“We had talked about how excited we were to purchase our first home. We talked about vacations and places we wanted to go visit. And all that was stripped away from me,” she said.
“Our daughter will not have her dad to walk her down the aisle. My two sons will never have their dad to take them fishing or (teach them) sports or how to be a gentleman.”
Capital punishment is state-sanctioned pre-meditated murder. It's done for revenge, not justice.
What's your opinion? Please leave a verdict.
Revenge is justice. This man is a traitor and a terrorist. He deserves a far more gruesome death than our law allows.
ReplyDelete"Revenge is justice"
DeleteDevil Anse would agree.
We have a criminal justice system precisely to move revenge into the public sphere. That idea goes back to the ancient Greeks. I refer you to the Oresteia for one illustration of this.
DeleteI'm not impressed, Greg.
DeleteAncient Hebrews had a similar idea, though with a religious basis: Revenge is God's, so individuals are not to take it, but God authorizes the state to take it so that justice is done after proof is given and procedure is followed rather than having bloody chaos.
DeleteI never figured you would be, Mikeb.
DeleteI do wonder if in this case we can count boiling lard as a lethal injection.
That's Islamophobic. I thought you avoided that kind of thing.
DeleteWhat's Islamophobic about that, Mike? Greg isn't insulting all Muslims, he's not suggesting smearing one's feet with lard and going to a mosque, or any other action offensive to all Muslims. Instead, he's suggesting that, upon enacting the death penalty, we do it in such a way as to discourage these kind of attacks.
DeleteOf course, these would be examples more of hatred of Islam than phobia. As for phobia, he's not stating that all Muslims are threats and need to be scared shitless of us. Instead, he's suggesting that we look at a historical example of something that has held violent groups of Muslims in check in the past--the use of pig products in executions.
Peaceful Muslims will be shocked that we would do something calculated to try to send the guy to Hell, according to their theology, but that will just make them think that by doing so we've earned our own ticket to the hot place.
It's the just punishment for what he did.
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason why the word "killing" can have a different definition than "murder". Just because your college liberal arts professors says it's all the same, they're not. Why does my six year old know this and you don't?
ReplyDeleteI am a college liberal arts professor, and I know the difference.
DeleteI favor capital punishment in cases like this where everyone is certain that the defendant murdered people ... and there were no mitigating factors. An example of a mitigating factor would be when the murderer was 10 years old. Another example would be a "crime of passion" where a parent kills the criminal who tortured and murdered their child.
ReplyDelete- TruthBeTold
1. Life, without the possibility of parole. In general pop.
ReplyDelete2. Death.
Tough choice.
Moonshine